


a bird you must not miss

by silmarile



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, pre-here there be gerblins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 12:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18475954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silmarile/pseuds/silmarile
Summary: one for sorrow, two for mirththree for a wedding, four for a birthfive for silver, six for goldseven for a secret never to be told





	a bird you must not miss

**Author's Note:**

> someone made some cool art about this? i think? and then i wrote some sad content about it.

i. one for sorrow  
Barry hurts when he does not know his life, and he hurts when he does. When he is alive, he knows something is missing, something fundamental waiting on the tip of his tongue, something that maybe the strange coin in his pocket and the weird cave he wakes up in could explain. He lives a life he does not understand, and then he dies, and remembers, and falls to the ground. It never gets easier, remembering that he has lost everything and everyone that was ever important to him. He screams, and he sobs, and he whispers Lup’s name into the wind, and he picks himself up and moves on. He must move on, keep searching for the other half of his soul, for he cannot give up. He swears to the air and this blue-skied world that he will find her, for there is no other choice. 

ii. two for mirth  
He is happy. Why wouldn’t he be happy? He is Davenport. He is happy and safe - of course he is safe, why wouldn’t he be safe? He watches her — this tired sad woman whose name he cannot think of — hide herself behind a mask of composure and brilliance. He watches her, and he helps her, but everything he tries to do he forgets. Sometimes the woman talks to him, tells him her secrets, because he won’t hold on to them for long anyway, and she is so sad. He is not sad. He is Davenport. He knows them all: the tired woman, and the sad bard, and the two women with the tricks and the flips that he cannot do, but he does not know their names. They tell him, but names slip through his mind like water, like everything but two facts. He is Davenport, and he is happy. He does not know why he is happy, but he does not mind. Why wouldn’t he be happy? 

iii. three for a wedding  
Every day, Magnus thinks he couldn’t become happier, and every day he is proven wrong. He loves his work, and he loves his wife, and he is so happy. Kalen is gone, and he is beloved by the people of Raven’s Roost, but most importantly he is beloved by the greatest woman in the world. Julia — he smiles when he thinks about her — he smiles all the time — is the most important thing in the world, and he can barely remember his life before he loved and was loved by Julia. Every time he touches her, every time her eyes meet his, every time he makes her laugh and wakes up beside her, he thinks to himself that he has never been happier. He cannot believe that this is something he can have, someone he can love and protect and keep safe.  
And then, of course, he doesn’t. He cannot protect her, or keep her and everyone else in Raven’s Roost safe. He still loves her, of course, he could never stop loving Julia, but she is no longer his, and he thinks he will drown in the sorrow and the guilt he feels. He cannot bear to wear his wedding ring, but he cannot bear to not wear it, to not have some part of Julia still with him. He knew it was too good to last, but he had still hoped. And now that hope is gone. 

iv. four for a birth  
Merle is a shitty dad. He wishes he wasn’t, that he knew how to be a better father and a better husband, but he just wasn’t cut out for this life. Hecuba is already tired of him, and to be honest, he doesn’t fault her. Sure, he loves his son, and despite what his wife thinks he loves his step-daughter too, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t have the parenting instinct. He wasn’t meant to settle down in a house with a wife and children who need stability, and safety, and all the things he can’t give them. He finds himself leaving too often, wandering around outside without telling anyone where he’s going. It’s not home, and it’s not a warm beach and cool surf, but it’s something, better than his house with his bitter wife and his wild little children. Sometimes he wonders where home is - it’s not where he grew up, and its not here. He aches to leave, to go back out into the world without responsibility or anyone relying on him, but he inexplicably stays, if only to prove to Hecuba that he can do this. 

v. five for silver.  
Taako’s great! He’s doing so well — _Sizzle It Up with Taako _is an unexpected sensation and he’s living life the way he was meant to: adored and not around for long. He’s living on the road, performing for devoted audiences and getting fame and adoration, and then leaving again before anyone gets close to him. He’s fine with just the one person — Sazed is good, a reliable man and a good worker, and Taako’s good — better than he had ever thought his life was going to be. He can afford all the ridiculous and beautiful clothes he has ever wanted, and he never worries about when he’s next going to eat or where he’s going to sleep that night. He is safe and comfortable, and he is loved and adored in all the ways he had ever dreamed of. And yet his dreams are still the same. When he sleeps, which is not often, he dreams of blonde hair and the most familiar thing in the world, and he wakes up with tears in his stunning eyes. He has no idea why, because he’s never let anyone become familiar, never let anyone close to him, and yet his dreams call to him with a voice he cannot recognize.__

____

vi. six for gold  
She. exists. barely. She shudders in and out of consciousness, unable to feel or hear, only catching glimpses of thick black curtains. When she’s awake, her mind is screaming for her brother and her beloved and her best friends, and she does not know which is worse: oblivion or the pure horror of her existence now. She has to laugh at her own hubris sometimes, that she’s too fucking good at making badass magic stuff that her own creation has become her prison. She wants, she craves, she needs something, anything to happen outside to discover her. She knows with a strange impossible certainty that she will be found, but she does not know when. She has never been patient, always has been the one to throw herself headlong and reckless into danger, but now she must be patient, for she has no other choice. In her precious few minutes of consciousness, she torches the black curtains around her and claws at the floor and tries every spell and trick she knows to send anything outside of the umbrella she is trapped in. She want to escape — she needs to escape, to find the the six other people who are her entire existence, her soul, the other half of herself and the piece of her heart she gave away. 

vii. seven for a secret never to be told  
Lucretia spirals. She is relieved that the world is safe, and guilty for not acting sooner, and guilty for betraying her best friends, and remorseful that she has lost them and angry that they would not trust her. They should have trusted her, should have listened to her and agreed with her and put faith in her, and they would still be here. She barely sleeps, paces her new moon that the world thinks is old and looks down at the peaceful world below her. She wonders sometimes —more than she should, probably — about where her boys are, if Taako is doing well, if Merle is happy, if Barry - she tries not to think about Barry. She doesn’t know where he is, and she doesn’t know if she would rather not know and hold out hope, or have the certainty that he was alive or dead. She worries, but she is hopeful. She has tried, and she is still trying so hard to make them happy, to give them safety and the lives they deserve. She is working so hard, for her team that has forgotten their mission and for this world they hurt and all the worlds out there. She just wants to keep them safe.

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @spacedustsilmarile


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